


Every Inch Of It

by deletable_bird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Arguing, Banter, Female Friendship, Jealous John, Jealous Sherlock, Jewelry, M/M, Married Couple, Nipple Piercings, Piercings, Possessive Behavior, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deletable_bird/pseuds/deletable_bird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Martha coughed discreetly and drifted closer, listening. The tall one with the tiny shorts and stilettos was sitting down, glaring up at the other from startlingly pale, kohl-lined eyes. The short one in the extremely well-fitting black shirt and bejeweled belt was looming, as best he could, over the other, silver-cuffed arms crossed and mouth a furious line. They were both adorned with a dark brown filigree of henna, and they both looked good enough to eat.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Inch Of It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Mehndi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/463676) by [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick). 



> I am a huge fan of AtlinMerrick's earlier stories, and I love writing alternate character perspectives, so here you have it.

Martha sort of hated Camden during the weekend.

She wasn’t exactly positive why, but ever since she’d been a child the crowds and hawkers and smell of sweat and cigarettes had repelled her with a vengeance. Today, she was really only here because of Eliza’s birthday, and she was quite seriously regretting it.

“Stay around here for a minute, all right? I’ve gotta piss,” said the aforementioned birthday girl, flashing her brilliant smile back at Martha as she skittered off in her heels, presumably for the loo and more probably to canoodle with the ginger looker who’d been dogging her for the past half an hour. Martha lifted a hand, gave her friend a rather hopeless smile in return, and wandered off in search of peace, or possibly entertainment.

It was barely minutes later, on Rassalass Row, when her eye was caught by what might have been the most interesting thing that she’d seen all day. Two men, quite possibly polar opposites, facing off with heartfelt fervor behind a loaded stall of glittering silver piercings and a multitude of tiny, artfully arranged tubes of henna paste.

Martha coughed discreetly and drifted closer, listening. The tall one with the tiny shorts and stilettos was sitting down, glaring up at the other from startlingly pale, kohl-lined eyes. The short one in the extremely well-fitting black shirt and bejeweled belt was looming, as best he could, over the other, silver-cuffed arms crossed and mouth a furious line.

They were both adorned with a dark brown filigree of henna, and they both looked good enough to eat.

The tall one clicked his lace-up heels impatiently against the pavement, muttering in a rich low baritone that pulled Martha in further. “—told you she used her _imaginatio_ —"

The short one leaned in farther, jeans shifting to perfectly highlight a very fine behind, the swirling design on his right bicep glinting in and out of view. " _'Married'_ also didn't seem to make one whit of difference to the Kensington Twins when—"

The way tall one tilted his jawline at an angle, radiating disdain, paired with the way the gilt edge of his velvet collar caught the light, was incredibly distracting. Discreetly, Martha sidled closer. "Why do you insist on calling them the Kensin—"

The short one raised his eyebrows, cocking his head in a way that screamed _Nope, I am not done, sit your ass down and await your rightful punishment_. "And finally, _finally_ 'married' seemed an actual _enticement_ to that couple from Chatham who wanted to ha—"

The tall one tossed a headful of curls, indignant and wild as a rangy, stubborn pony. "I said no, didn't I say no?"

The eye-roll that the short one employed was the most magnificent Martha had yet seen in her thirty-odd years. "I don't _know_ if you said _no_ because I was passed out if you remember, due to a certain doped drin—"

She couldn’t hold herself back any longer. Taking a decisive step straight into the range of fire, she asked, "Excuse me, how much to get my nipples pierced?"

It slipped straight out from between her lips and hovered in the air between the two opposing parties. The tension between the two ridiculously attractive men was thick and tingly enough to taste, and Martha secretly relished it, keeping a blandly interested look firmly planted on her face.

The short, built one turned towards her with a falsely bright smile plastered across his face. “Excuse me we’re—”

The tall, rangy one leapt to his feet, striding towards her with the most flawless catwalk she’d ever had the fortune to witness. Martha was not a short woman, but this creature dwarfed her by at least nine inches. He flashed a smirky smile at her and said, lowering his lashes to gaze at her through them, “That’ll depend on the jewelry you choose, madam, but the fee begins at thirty pounds.”

Lord, his voice was like melted chocolate and woodsmoke and blackberry honey and dark purple velvet, almost the same color as those very _revealing_ shorts. She smiled at him, leaning closer. “Oh, that’s quite a good price.”

An angry shifting movement caught the corner of her eye and she glanced over at the short one, who was looking thunderous and very possessive. She grinned broadly, licked her lips. He was so tiny, like a little Hobbit. What a cutie, and sexy to boot. “Might I have them done now, please?” she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the blonde one.

His gaze shifted from jealous to appraising and slid straight on past the turn-off towards anger, making a beeline for a look of interest with a pit stop at sly smiles. He was about to speak when the tall one, a stormy frown clouding his face, crowded close to his most likely husband, pressing at least six feet six inches of lean, pale, hennaed body against the other. “I’m sorry, I meant thirty pounds _each_ ,” he said, his voice descending into the realms of thunder and _look out, that’s my man you’re coming on to_.

Martha was completely delighted. She hid it, however, and waited to see how this would play out.

The small one jabbed an elbow into the tall one’s henna-stained belly. The tall one wasn’t even remotely subtle about his “Ouch, why are you jabbing me in the belly with your elbow?” Martha was extremely subtle about her pleasure that these two gorgeous men now seemed to be squabbling because of her.

"Excuse my idiot colleague, he's forgotten the sale we've got today—" the small one gestured to the sky expansively, "—the sun sale! Such a pretty day deserves, um, pretty prices—"

He frowned briefly, apparently searching for something more clever to say, but wound up doing the elbow thing—"Ow!"—again when the tall one pressed even closer.

"We have quite an array of jewelry, take your time selecting what you like. We'll be right here. Waiting." He smiled another pretty smile at her. She returned it with interest, both metaphorically and literally.

“Thank you.” She gave the pair of them an amused look, wondered briefly if the tall one would ever be able to pry himself apart from the other, and drifted off a few feet, browsing the arrays of glittering jewelry with half her attention. The other half stayed firmly fixed on the apparently feline pair of vendors, seeing as the tall one had begun hissing.

Martha dared to glance at them and was hard-pressed not to laugh. They were almost juvenile in their face-off, the short one glaring and the tall one expelling a long stream of snakelike sibilation. It was perhaps lucky that mere minutes passed before she found a way to distract them, as the sun went behind a cloud and she called out “Uh oh, are you still having a sale if the sun goes in?”

There was a heartbeat of realization before the tall one drew himself up to even greater heights, quite possibly bristled, and sigh-groaned, dramatic as a peacock in theatre, “Oh for heaven’s sa—”

It took almost all of Martha’s self control not to laugh when the short one spun around, squared his shoulder, hissed straight in the tall one’s face, and then whirled sharply on his heel with military precision and honest-to-the-Lord _swaggered_ straight over to her.

The jealousy radiating from the tall one was palpable, the _don’t you fucking dare look at him_ present enough to slice into thin pieces and enjoy on a cheese and cracker spread. The short one didn’t look back, and as soon as he had reached her, Martha reached out and touched his wrist, brushing fingertips over the heavy, suggestively cuff-like silver bracelet he was wearing.

“Those are so pretty,” she said, looking at the jewelry before dragging her gaze up to meet the short one’s brilliantly blue eyes.

“Some people call them slave bracelets,” he replied, tilting his head just barely towards hers with the faintest of smiles curling the corner of his mouth.

Martha grinned. She hadn’t expected to have such a good time at the market. “Are you his, or is he yours?”

She waited for his answer, her fingertips still resting on his cuff. He replied with his devilish smile growing wider, and his eyes flicking just for the tiniest of seconds back towards the tall one. “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he’s mine. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I’m his.”

“And today?” Martha murmured, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

“Sundays . . .” the man before her breathed, turning back to look at the bare-bellied, hennaed, heeled, gorgeous, infuriated, jealous figure staring at him with enough anger to burn Rome in a day, “. . . Sundays we take turns.”

The three of them stood for a minute or two, thinking about that. Then the littlest one murmured, “S’my turn now.”

And despite the sun, despite the brisk breeze, despite the crowds of people surrounding them you could _smell the sex_ , the heavy pheromone smell when three people suddenly go into rut (although Martha had a feeling she wouldn’t be one of the two getting any). The silver-laden, slender fingers attached to the end of the hennaed arm of the tall one immediately went to the henna spiraling around his bejeweled navel, tracing the delicate designs in an almost unconscious gesture. The small man licked his lips, squared his shoulders in a gesture already familiar to Martha, and suddenly adopted an undeniably _dominant_ air. He turned to her, authority and desperation radiating from him.

“I will pierce any part of your body,” he said earnestly, “for free if you watch the stall for the next . . . the next—”

“—take your time. _Take your time_ ,” Martha said fervently, her eyes skipping from the small one and his tongue darting out to wet his lips to the tall one’s hooded eyes and quickening breath. “All the time you need. Every . . .”

Her gaze slid from the tall one’s smouldering gaze to his scandalously tiny purple velvet shorts where, hello, someone’s interested in his surroundings.

“. . . every inch of it.”

Martha had barely ten minutes to wait after the tall one and the small one had sailed off under full, erection-laden steam, until Eliza came wandering down the street, her hair rather suggestively mussed and her lipstick barely there.

“Eliza!” she called. The birthday girl turned, made a confused face, and wove her way through the crowd until she finally squeezed behind the jewelry and henna laden table Martha had recently acquired.

“How the hell did you get a stall? I was only gone twenty minutes,” she asked, whipping out a compact to double-check her mascara. Martha smiled.

“It’s a bit of a long story.”

Eliza raised an eyebrow, abandoning the compact in favor of something more interesting than her makeup. “I’m listening.”

Martha’s smile grew wider, and she sat down with a wink, patting the chair beside her. “Well, there were these two men . . .”


End file.
